Amazon hires a star cardiologist to help its push into health August 21, 2018, 13:41

Amazon has hired well-known cardiologist Maulik Majmudar for a new role, as it looks to move into the $3 trillion health-care sector.

Majmudar announced his new role on his Twitter account on Monday. Before joining the technology company, he worked as a cardiologist and associate director of the health-care transformation lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and he lectured at MIT. At the lab, he looked at how to incorporate the latest medical technologies into the practice of medicine.

Majmudar did not disclose the specific team he would be joining at Amazon, only that he would be taking on an "exciting and challenging role." He's advised technology companies in the past, such as Quanttus, a company that tried to track blood pressure from the wrist but ultimately failed.

Amazon declined to comment. Majmudar did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Amazon currently has a number of different teams working on health care and has been on a health-care hiring spree, bringing on experts includingprimary care expert Martin Levine and Taha Kass-Hout, former FDA chief health information officer.

Among its many projects: Its business group is looking to sell medical supplies to hospitals and clinics. Its cloud team is selling AI and other advanced technologies to health-care companies. It has a wellness team within Alexa that is focusing on developing voice applications in health care. Its research and development group, dubbed Grand Challenges, is working on everything from medical records to telemedicine. And in June, the company acquired online pharmacy PillPack.

The company also has an interest in bringing down health costs for its employees through its partnership with J.P Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway. CNBC previously reported it has a team working on building out employee health clinics.

Majmudar, with his wide-ranging background in health care, could be working with any or all of these groups.

Cardiologists seem to be in high demand for tech companies moving into health care. Jessica Mega, chief medical officer of Alphabet's life sciences arm Verily, is a trained cardiologist. And Freddy Abnousi, Facebook's most senior health-care hire, also has a background in heart health.

"This is a fascinating move that signals how all the big tech players, like Amazon, Google and Apple, understand that the most prevalent disease in the world is heart disease," said Vic Gundotra, CEO of AliveCor, a heart-health technology company and a former senior vice president at Google. "It's one of the greatest places where technology can have an impact, in diagnosing and screening for these diseases."